


Bar Scheme

by NATHANIEL_THE_ANGEL



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, also bear is there, because I will never write a poi fic without him, broke!sameen, hacker!root, shoot, shootsecretsanta18, so real root, which is the only true form of her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 08:09:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17199782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NATHANIEL_THE_ANGEL/pseuds/NATHANIEL_THE_ANGEL
Summary: Sameeen is as broke as it gets and in desperate need for money. She places a bet and needs a brunette stranger to help her.





	Bar Scheme

The bar’s music was loud enough to make a conversation possible but cut it shorter than most people would like. Sameen wasn’t most people.

Clocking the man with the perfect ratio of inflated ego and average to low intellect was so easy that her dog could have done it. She had left him outside. He’d be too distracted in the environment and made her look more threatening than she wanted to appear. Still he was only one special whistle away and she was doing the whole thing for him too. Kind of. They both needed food and she was freshly out of money. Again.  
With a sigh she stood up, heading towards her newest victim. She estimated him a late twenty with an already receding hairline.

“Hey fellas what’s up?”  
She hated this part the most. Talking to pretty girls was fun, talking to an tipsy, leering, smelling man decidedly wasn’t. 

He gave her a very obvious once over: “Damn girl. Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?”  
Resisting the primal urge to roll her eyes at the roaring laughter that bad line earned from his little crowd was almost physically painful. He had the looks of a Richard.

“I got a bet for you, you interested?”

“Baby I love bets.” She could have very much done without the smell of stale beer and cigarettes wafting out of his mouth. Or that pet name.

“I bet you I can get the number of any woman in here. You get to pick one and if I win you owe me 50$.”

“And what if you lose?”

There was a dangerous glimmer in her eyes for a second.  
“I never lose.”  
Laughter erupted from the crowd at her sentiment which visibly angered her victim of the night.

“Well try your charme on the stuck up bitch over there on the wall.”

Sameen turned around with a self content smile. She had a 90% chance calculated he would dare her to ask out the brunette woman seeing as he had failed rather gruesomely earlier this evening.

She sat down on the stool next to her hopefully temporary new partner.

“I got a proposal for you.”, was delivered loudly enough to catch her attention, brown eyes focusing on her now and not a phone screen.

“I just bet that guy over there”, she nodded in the unfortunate direction. “that I could get your phone number. So just pretend I said something very funny, write a fake number on your napkin and we will split the money.   
How does that sound?”

“Sounds like fun.” The brunette grabbed a lonesome pen and napkin and wrote a new yorker number and “Root” on it and laughed artificially as she gave it to her. Lingering longer than strictly necessary

Superuser Root, that woman had looks and taste. She doubted though if “Richard” would appreciate it as much as she did.  
The brunette or Root as she should probably call her gave her the napkin and somehow managed to wink with both eyes.   
Making Sameen’s smile a real one as she turned around and walked back to “Richard”, she had found a fun one.

She held the napkin triumphantly under his nose.  
“Seems like my charme won’t run out tonight. I believe you owe me?”

The crowd that had been cheering before was silent now. Heads whipping from left to right.

“Root, what kind of fucking name is that supposed to be? Is she a plant? I bet that’s not even her real number.”  
He took a phone out of the hands of a shocked bystander, tapping in the digits with more force than strictly necessary.

Sameen was close to strangling him. She just wanted to go “home” - if you could call her four walls that- not go to the next bar because he wanted to verify her bet to bolster his broken ego. 

To her surprise Root’s phone actually rang. She couldn’t hear any words but her grin was visible from where she was standing.  
Only topping that was Richard’s now pink face of embarrassment after he had hurriedly hung up. Giving her the 50$ without any commentary or lingering looks.

Sameen hadn’t been in such a good mood for a while now.  
Taking Bear’s leash outside the bar, she texted Root to meet her but the message came back with an error.  
She gave her partner in crime exactly five minutes to show up. If Root didn’t need the money than that was her problem because she sure as hell could use it.  
Putting distance between her and the bar after no sign of Root was visible to her she mused   
that tonight had been a successful night.

Bending down to Bear’s ear she whispered: 

“How about some Steak?”

 

\-------------2 Weeks later-----------------

Money was tight, again. Her inner persistent calculator was ringing with the warning that she’d need to run at least three more bar schemes this week if she didn’t wanna choose between food for her or food for the dog. She had a sudden longing for her old “job”. Fucking idiots had been busted in a stolen car with drugs. It might not have been legal but it had required at least 90% less talking than her current way of earning money did.  
The only upside was that having Bear tag along wasn’t a big issue anymore, since she was her own boss now. Kind of at least.

After taking a deep breath. flexing her neck and petting bear a temporary goodbye she was as good as she would ever be..  
Opening the door to a bar was always an overwhelming situation. The thick air mixed with the smell of too many people in a too small room combined with the bright lights disoriented most people. Not her though. Lucky for her she found a table by the wall, enabling her to see everything but be overlooked by most.

The douche of the bar was easier to spot than usual his extraordinary bad taste in clothing and color coordination was practically begging her to show him up. A bad taste of fashion was a to her unexplained but persistent constante in clocking the guy of the night.  
On to the second part she thought, which lady is he gonna choose.  
There weren’t a lot of options here and she had a feeling he had tried to get touchy which each of them already. Nothing out of the ordinary though. She saw brunette, blonde and dark hair combined with even more ordinary clothes. Impossible to say who he would choose and no time or patience to figure it out.

Making her way over to the pool table she took one of the empty beer bottles to make her seem more natural. Better play safe than sorry now even though she hated touching things strangers had on their lips. 

“What up?”, she kept her tone neutral.  
Not even bothering to look up from his game her victim stated: “Whatever you want, keep it short. As you can see I am busy.”  
“I got a bet for you.”  
“Ah yeah? What’s it about. You wanna challenge me in pool? Got bad news for you darling. I am undefeated.”  
Sameen was resisting the urge to take his poke and beat him up with it. Trying to keep her tone neutral/to slightly flirty. Hopefully enough to make him finally look at her.

“I bet you I can get the number of any woman in here.”  
Now she had his atttention. Placing the poke down gently like a baby he turned around.

“Say you win, what do you get?”

“50$ from you.”

And in the highly likely case you’ll fail?

“Then I’ll teach how to actually play pool.”  
“It’s a bet then.” She shook his extended slimy hand. She would call him Chad.

After separating he showed her the black haired woman who seemed to be fascinated with her phone. 

“Good luck with this one. She didn’t even want a drink.”

Sameen sighed internally, hopefully this stranger would be partial to her cause.  
As she got closer, Sameen noticed that black wasn’t this stranger’s natural color.  
Sitting down she forgot her usual text for a moment. She knew this stranger. It was Root, from two weeks ago who had saved her from visiting another bar.

“Hello stranger”  
She had obviously startled Root who almost dropped her phone, but then recovered quickly.

“I was hoping I might see you in here again. We didn’t get to talk last time.”

“Figured you were rich enough to not need the 25$, don’t worry though I put them to good use.”  
Her index finger was pointing at her stomach.

Root laughed lightly, her now black hair swinging lightly with her head.+  
“Let me guess, you want my number?” 

Sameen smiled.   
“And a laugh, like I am the most amusing person you’ve met all week.”

“Oh, I don’t have to fake that.” Root gave her another two-eyed-wink. And an already written on number.

Sameen stood up with a light smile on her lips and a shaking head, but thinking of one last thing.  
Over her shoulder she told Root: “Maybe this time you will actually collect your money.”

Five minutes later she was 50$ closer to a steak night, when Root left the bar.  
Going up to Sameen and immediately bending down to let Bear smell her hand.

“Is he yours?”

“Yeah, found him by the river with a torn leash and no one who was looking for him, so I took him in.”

She nodded, thoughtfully while patting Bear’s head.  
“With everything going on I didn’t even catch your name.”

“Shaw. Sameen Shaw.”   
“Good, Sam than how about we find something that will earn you much more than 50$?”

“Sounds like fun.”


End file.
